Types of Adjectives

Descriptive Adjectives

Quantitative Adjectives

Proper Adjectives

Demonstrative Adjectives

Possessive Adjectives

Interrogative Adjectives

Indefinite Adjectives

Articles

Compound Adjectives

Descriptive Adjectives:

A descriptive adjective is a word which describes nouns and pronouns. Most of the adjectives
belong in this type. These adjectives provide information and attribute to the nouns/pronouns
they modify or describe. Descriptive adjectives are also called qualitative adjectives.

Participles are also included in this type of adjective when they modify a noun.

Examples:

I have a fast (The word ‘fast’ is describing an attribute of the car)

I am hungry. (The word ‘hungry’ is providing information about the subject)

The hungry cats are crying.

I saw a flying

Quantitative Adjectives:
A quantitative adjective provides information about the quantity of the nouns/pronouns. This
type belongs to the question category of ‘how much’ and ‘how many’.

Examples:

I have 20 bucks in my wallet. (How much)

They have three (How many)

You should have completed the whole (How much)

Proper Adjectives:

Proper adjectives are the adjective form of proper nouns. When proper nouns modify or
describe other nouns/pronouns, they become proper adjectives. ‘Proper’ means ‘specific’
rather than ‘formal’ or ‘polite.’

A proper adjective allows us to summarize a concept in just one word. Instead of writing/saying
‘a food cooked in Chinese recipe’ you can write/say ‘Chinese food’.

Proper adjectives are usually capitalized as proper nouns are.

Example:

American cars are very strong.

Chinese people are hard workers.

I love KFC

Marxist philosophers despise capitalism.

Demonstrative Adjectives:
A demonstrative adjective directly refers to something or someone. Demonstrative adjectives
include the words: this, that, these, those.

A demonstrative pronoun works alone and does not precede a noun, but a demonstrative
adjective always comes before the word it modifies.

Examples:

That building is so gorgeously decorated. (‘That’ refers to a singular noun far from the speaker)

This car is mine. (‘This’ refers to a singular noun close to the speaker)

These cats are cute. (‘These’ refers to a plural noun close to the speaker)

Those flowers are heavenly. (‘Those’ refers to a plural noun far from the speaker)

Possessive Adjectives:

A possessive adjective indicates possession or ownership. It suggests the belongingness of

something to someone/something.

Some of the most used possessive adjectives are my, his, her, our, their, your.

All these adjectives always come before a noun. Unlike possessive pronouns, these words
demand a noun after them.

Examples:

My car is parked outside.

His cat is very cute.

Our job is almost done.

Her books are interesting.

Interrogative Adjectives:

An interrogative adjective asks a question. An interrogative adjective must be followed by a

noun or a pronoun. The interrogative adjectives are: which, what, whose. These words will not
be considered as adjectives if a noun does not follow right after them. ‘Whose’ also belongs to
the possessive adjective type.

Examples:

Whichphone do you use?

Whatgame do you want to play?

Whosecar is this?

Indefinite Adjectives:

An indefinite adjective describes or modifies a noun unspecifically. They provide

indefinite/unspecific information about the noun. The common indefinite adjectives are few,
many, much, most, all, any, each, every, either, nobody, several, some, etc.

Examples:

I gave some candy to her.

I want a few moments alone.

Several writers wrote about the recent incidents.

Each student will have to submit homework tomorrow.

Articles

Articles also modify the nouns. So, articles are also adjectives. Articles determine the
specification of nouns. ‘A’ and ‘an’ are used to refer to an unspecific noun, and ‘the’ is used to
refer to a specific noun.
Examples:

A cat is always afraid of water. (Here, the noun ‘cat’ refers to any cat, not specific.)

The cat is afraid of me. (This cat is a specific cat.)

An electronic product should always be handled with care.

Compound Adjectives:

When compound nouns/combined words modify other nouns, they become a compound
adjective. This type of adjective usually combines more than one word into a single lexical unit
and modifies a noun. They are often separated by a hyphen or joined together by a quotation
mark.

Example:

I have a broken-down

I saw a six-foot-long

He gave me an “I’m gonna kill you now”